U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Review One of the Most Extreme Abortion Bans in the Nation

North Dakota’s ban on abortion as early as 6 weeks of pregnancy to remain permanently blocked. Order comes two months after Supreme Court agrees to review Texas’ deceptive clinic shutdown law, less than one week after Court refuses to review Arkansas’ ban on abortion at 12 weeks

01.25.16 - (PRESS RELEASE) The U.S. Supreme
Court today refused to review North Dakota’s blatantly unconstitutional ban on
abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy—allowing a July 2015 ruling
from an appellate court striking the measure to stand.

“Whether in North Dakota,
Arkansas, or Texas, politicians simply cannot rob women of their constitutional
rights,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive
Rights. “This utterly cruel and unconstitutional ban would have made
North Dakota the first state since Roe v. Wade to effectively ban abortion—with
countless women left to pay the price.

“We continue to look to
the nation’s highest court to protect the rights, health, and dignity of
millions of women and now strike down Texas’ clinic shutdown law.”

Today’s order comes just
over two months after the Supreme Court agreed
to review Texas’s clinic shutdown law— a measure that has already shuttered
half of the abortion providers in Texas, and is poised to leave the nation’s
second-largest state with 10 or fewer abortion clinics—and less than one week
after the Supreme Court refused
to review Arkansas’ ban on abortion at twelve weeks of pregnancy.

The U.S. Supreme Court has
consistently held—first
in Roe v. Wade and
again in Planned Parenthood v.
Casey—that women have a constitutional right to decide whether to
end or continue a pregnancy and states cannot ban abortion prior to
viability. The Supreme Court refused to review a decision permanently blocking Arizona’s
ban on abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy in 2014, and courts in Idaho and
Georgia have also blocked similar pre-viability bans.

North
Dakota’s HB 1456—which was signed
into law by Governor Jack Dalrymple in March 2013—is the earliest and most
extreme abortion ban in the nation, making virtually all abortions in the state
illegal as early as six weeks of pregnancy. The Center for Reproductive
Rights and Thomas A. Dickson of the Dickson Law Office in Bismarck filed the
lawsuit in June 2013 challenging the ban on behalf of Red River Women’s
Clinic—the state’s sole abortion provider. A federal district court judge
temporarily blocked
the ban in July 2013 and then permanently blocked
the law in April 2014, noting “the United States Supreme Court has spoken and
has unequivocally said no state may deprive a woman of the choice to terminate
her pregnancy at a point prior to viability.” The U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Eighth Circuit permanently blocked
the ban in July 2015; North Dakota asked the Supreme Court to review the
appellate court’s decision in late 2015.